年初一 Year Of The Woof
I was greeted by the crying of our little "monkey" (Chester born in the year of Monkey) at 6am this morning. He slept at 10.30pm last night because of our reunion dinner so I guess he was still tired and I let him stayed in the crib. He went back to sleep but woke up at 6.30am. When I carried him out and sat on the couch, he wouldn't move. He hugged me like a baby koala and together with his teddies and sharkie plushie, he stuck himself to me for half an hour. We just sat there like a giant rock, not moving much until the sky turned bright.
When he was finally awake, expect him to be goofing around the house. This morning, he found two oranges from the kitchen and they became his toys.
Allan and Scarlett usually pick 挥春 with a verse best suit us and stick them on our doors.
For our main door, we have "Safe and peace in and out" (pardon my lousy translation). The huge one was written by Scarlett and the tiny red one was written by my father-in-law. His verse is also "Safe and peace through all four seasons". These verses are best placed on our main door.
For our room, we have "In the spirit of dragon and horse", which means to be energized and sharp like the legendary dragon and horse. I think both Allan and I definitely need some of these mojo as we are always so exhausted.
For the kids, it is definitely the famous verse for children "Grow tall and grow fast".
This one's funny, it's on our toilet door. It says, "Good health to the body", may we all have happy poop. Stay healthy and strong always.
Every first day of Chinese New Year, we will visit my parents-in-law and greet them. My mother-in-law will cook vegetarian dishes for lunch. We need a good detox from the dinner last night. Besides, we have this huge family dinner gathering with Allan's relatives at the Chinese restaurant tonight and it will be another feast. We should never punish our stomach with too much good food. My mother-in-law's vegetarian dishes are really tasty. Even Chester ate them.
After lunch, we will always take a group family photo. This will be Chester's 3rd CNY with us. The first CNY, he was only 3 days old and swaddled in thick blanket. It was also the day I was discharged from hospital.
Dinner with relatives tonight didn't end too well. I was glad I downed two glasses of red wine. Could have been more seeing that Chester spent most of the night crying as he was overwhelmed by the number of people he saw tonight. He had a melt down again when I brought him out of the restaurant to take a breather. It was a stressful night for me.
I am feeling so emotionally and physically exhausted right now. The kind of feeling you feel like you let yourself down and wondered what you did wrong to have caused your son to behave and act this way. I get questions like why was he crying, whether he had enough nap (he sure did, he slept from 2.30pm to 5pm), whether he was hungry (I fed him some snack before heading to restaurant for dinner) etc. I did everything I was suppose to do to avoid getting him upset but still, he was upset. The worst part was, I cannot be 100% certain why he cried so badly other than guessing he was overwhelmed by so many relatives and even the waitresses in the restaurant who know my in-laws very well went to Chester to give him lai see. They all went straight to his face. He just lost it. Too many faces in one night.
Sometimes I wish I could just hold him and ask everybody to give him space because he was obviously having an anxiety attack, but that seem so rude, when everyone was just trying to be friendly and nice to him. That also seem like I am being over protective of him. Scarlett saw how I struggled with him when he had his meltdown outside the restaurant. She tried to help but she couldn't. She was better off to stay away from him as he got really violent. It was the most unsightly scene of a mother and son wrestling with each other. Nothing could soothe him, until Allan came out and grabbed him away from me. I always get the hit because he knows he can do it to me and I will still love him. That sucks.
When we got home, Scarlett asked if I enjoyed the night and I gave her a straight no. Don't get me wrong, the food was amazing and I am thankful to have this dinner, it was just Chester. She gets it. Her reply was simply, "Poor mama.". That's comforting enough for me.
This will be one memorable 年初一 for me. Perhaps years later when Chester grows up, I looked back, I will be laughing about it. But tonight, it sure does feel awful. I hope you all had a great day in celebration. I did. Really. No matter how shitty the day gets for me, I think life itself is already worth celebrating.
This is how I roll.
Gave Chester a good wipe with warm towel as he rolled on the floor again and I am too tired to bath him. Changed his diaper, made him a warm bottle of milk, fed him, sing to him, stroke his cheeks, tuck him to bed and told him I love him. He slept on his own without crying. He knows I love him no matter how angry he made me. He knows. Night time is always our make up time.
I am feeling so emotionally and physically exhausted right now. The kind of feeling you feel like you let yourself down and wondered what you did wrong to have caused your son to behave and act this way. I get questions like why was he crying, whether he had enough nap (he sure did, he slept from 2.30pm to 5pm), whether he was hungry (I fed him some snack before heading to restaurant for dinner) etc. I did everything I was suppose to do to avoid getting him upset but still, he was upset. The worst part was, I cannot be 100% certain why he cried so badly other than guessing he was overwhelmed by so many relatives and even the waitresses in the restaurant who know my in-laws very well went to Chester to give him lai see. They all went straight to his face. He just lost it. Too many faces in one night.
Sometimes I wish I could just hold him and ask everybody to give him space because he was obviously having an anxiety attack, but that seem so rude, when everyone was just trying to be friendly and nice to him. That also seem like I am being over protective of him. Scarlett saw how I struggled with him when he had his meltdown outside the restaurant. She tried to help but she couldn't. She was better off to stay away from him as he got really violent. It was the most unsightly scene of a mother and son wrestling with each other. Nothing could soothe him, until Allan came out and grabbed him away from me. I always get the hit because he knows he can do it to me and I will still love him. That sucks.
When we got home, Scarlett asked if I enjoyed the night and I gave her a straight no. Don't get me wrong, the food was amazing and I am thankful to have this dinner, it was just Chester. She gets it. Her reply was simply, "Poor mama.". That's comforting enough for me.
This will be one memorable 年初一 for me. Perhaps years later when Chester grows up, I looked back, I will be laughing about it. But tonight, it sure does feel awful. I hope you all had a great day in celebration. I did. Really. No matter how shitty the day gets for me, I think life itself is already worth celebrating.
This is how I roll.
Gave Chester a good wipe with warm towel as he rolled on the floor again and I am too tired to bath him. Changed his diaper, made him a warm bottle of milk, fed him, sing to him, stroke his cheeks, tuck him to bed and told him I love him. He slept on his own without crying. He knows I love him no matter how angry he made me. He knows. Night time is always our make up time.
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